Free The Hidden Heart by Candace Camp

but she was a beauty. Every inch a duchess, she was. Tall and striking, with black hair and green eyes. Good-looking lot, the Aincourts, whatever else they might be. There’s a portrait of her in the Great Hall. They were very happy. And, oh, the times we had at the castle then! There were often guests—for weeks at a time, sometimes. Balls and dinners and all sorts of entertainment. His Grace was a sociable man.”
    “The duke?” Jessica asked in disbelief.
    The other woman nodded. “Oh, yes. I am sure you would not credit it, to see him now. But he enjoyed company. He wasn’t one of those who was irresponsible or wild, you understand. He always did his duty and took an interest in his affairs, but he liked a party as well as the next man. And the duchess! Well, she fairly glowed at a ball. She was always the center of attention. They had a daughter, Alana.”
    “A daughter? He said nothing about her. He said that his wife had died, but…”
    Miss Brown nodded, her eye darkening a little. “Oh, yes, he had a daughter.” She smiled to herself. “Ah, she was a corker, that one. Lively as could be, always into everything, but no one could get mad at her, because she had the sunniest disposition. All she had to do was smile at you and say she was sorry, and you would forgive her anything. After she was born, they spent even more time here, only going to London for the height of the season. The duke felt it was better to raise a child here in the country, you see. Miss Alana didn’t even sleep in the nursery. His Grace thought it was too far away: they could not hear if she cried out. She stayed right down the hall from her parents, and her nurse slept on a bed in her room.”
    “What happened? I mean, what changed everything?”
    “They were in a carriage accident. The duchess and the little one were killed.”
    “Oh, how awful.”
    The housekeeper nodded, her eyes filling with tears as she remembered. “His Grace was riding outside the carriage. It was winter, before Christmas, right about this time of year, in fact.” She sighed. “They were probably driving too fast. Anyway, the carriage overturned as they took a corner. It rolled down an embankment, and the duchess was thrown out. Her neck was broken, and she died instantly. But the carriage, with the wee one inside, rolled on down into the pond.”
    Jessica drew in her breath sharply in horror. “Oh, no! How awful!”
    “There was a thin layer of ice on the top of the pond, but of course the coach broke right through. His Grace went in after her. The coachman said it was a pitiful sight, how he dived again and again into the cold dark water. Finally, he brought her up and carried her onto land, but it was too late. The poor sweet child was dead.”
    Sympathetic tears welled in Jessica’s eyes as she thought about the horrific scene—the frantic parent, the frozen pond, the dark, icy night. She could imagine the overturned carriage, the frightened horses, the beautiful woman dead on the ground, and the duke throwing himself into the icy water in a desperate search for his child, emerging at last with her still form.
    “He carried that child in his arms all the way home, and when he walked through the door, holding her—I’ll never forget his face that night. I’ve never seen anything as bleak. We could hardly pry the child out of his arms and bundle him off to bed himself. He came down with a terrible fever—it was no wonder, him being in that icy water and then in freezing weather all the way home—and he nearly died himself. His valet, Noonan, and Baxter and I took care of him. For days we thought we were going to lose him, too, and then it was still more weeks before he was well. He was so gaunt you would hardly recognize him, and that’s a fact. He aged years in those weeks.”
    “Poor man.” However much he had angered Jessica, her heart was wrung with pity for him. He had suffered terribly—the loss of a beloved spouse was sad enough, but